Facilitating Spaces of Urban Agroecology: A Learning Framework for Community-University Partnerships

Urban Farm DB summary

This paper examines collaboration among growers, policymakers, scholars, and community members around urban farms, community gardens, and home gardens in the Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP), Minnesota metropolitan area, proposing a "learning framework" that emerged from a five-year community-university partnership. In fall 2019 the partnership conducted its first formal evaluation of its participatory processes, examining (1) what facilitated or barred authentic collaboration and (2) the role of relationships within those processes, through qualitative surveys and interviews with researchers, partners, and students. The analysis found that urban agroecology research created a space for shared learning, facilitated through co-creation of research, embodied processes, and relationships with people, cohorts, and place.